Spirited Scriveners

https://www.katharinecrawfordrobey.com

“Last Train to Banff”

Warner stood at the window of the compartment, thinking about his wife. Thirty years, ten months, and one week ago today, they’d been married. They’d never taken a honeymoon. He was always on assignment for Romantic Travel. Yet someone had to make a living. How she would have loved this. But it was too late, too final. He pulled his cell phone out of the breast pocket of his Irish tweed and began to dictate:

The train rumbles over the track, vibrating under my feet. Sometimes it lurches and I’m thrown off balance. But that is part of the romance of train travel, especially this VIA Rail train. Snow has begun to fall. Big, wet blossoms of  flakes cling to drooping firs and whirl into the creek that rushes silver below.  

There was a knock at his door. But it didn’t register. If she were here, she’d tease and say, “You didn’t forget your binoculars, did you? When we get to Banff there will be tons of first-rate birds.” Then she’d have rummaged through his suitcase, getting everything he’d so carefully folded, undone. She was like that, always getting into his things. She’d come to the window and warm her body with his and say, “I might just let you use mine. We can share. We might just see a water ouzel.”

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